UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH CAROLINA
PREVENTION RESEARCH CENTER NOTES
"Promoting Health Through Physical Activity"

Greetings from South Carolina. Year 2000 is off to a busy start with
a week of winter snow and ice (most unusual in the South) and political
debates. Next week we will see Olympic hopefuls run through the streets
of Columbia as they compete for a position on the 2000 US Olympic
Marathon Women’s Team. We are pleased to welcome Dr. Catrine Tudor-Locke
to our Center as a post-doctoral research associate. She comes to
us from the University of Western Ontario in Canada and will be working
on collaborative projects to evaluate children’s physical activity
and physical activity intervention projects. Our activities in the
Prevention Research Center are going full steam ahead as well. As
one of 23 Centers funded by a five-year grant from the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention, our mission to conduct applied community
research and to translate research to public health practice. If you
would like to learn more about what we are doing in the areas of Community
Intervention Research, Training, Dissemination, and Applied Physical
Activity Research, link up to our web page at the address below. We
hope you enjoy this month’s newsletter.

EMPLOYEE HEALTH AND FITNESS: Mark your calendars now for
National Employee Health and Fitness Day (NEHF) 2000, to be held on
Wednesday, May 17th, 2000. In its 12th consecutive year, this national
health observance promoting worksite health and fitness annually attracts
thousands of companies in the US. For more information, contact the
National Association of Governor’s Councils on Physical Fitness and
Sports, the official founder and administrator of NEHF, by calling
317-237-5630, or visit their website at www.physicalfitness.org.
(Submitted by Mike Niederpruem, Nat’l Assn. Of Governor’s Councils
on Physical Fitness and Sports)

MILLENNIUM TRAILS: Don't miss this one-time only chance to
have your trail designated as a Community Millennium Trail. An initiative
of the White House and Department of Transportation, Millennium Trails
recognizes, promotes, and stimulates the development of trails and
greenways. By registering a National Trails Day (June 3, 2000) event,
an organization’s trail will automatically be submitted to receive
designation as one of the 2000 Community Millennium Trails. For more
information on Millennium Trails or National Trails Day, visit www.americanhiking.org/.
(From the American Hiking Society)

WHAT’S HAPPENING IN WASHINGTON

FY 2001 BUDGET REQUEST: The Clinton Administration recently
submitted its Fiscal Year 2001 budget to Congress. While the budget
requests increased funding overall for the Centers for Disease Control,
several key programs are at decreased funding levels. The Prevention
Research Centers program would see a $3 million decrease, while the
Diabetes program would see a $2 million decrease. On the bright side,
funds for the Eliminating Racial and Ethnic Disparities program would
receive an almost $5 million increase. Funding for Behavioral Risk
Factor Surveillance and the Preventive Health Block Grants (which
help fund many state health department chronic disease prevention
programs) is almost level from the Fiscal Year 2000 appropriation.
Cardiovascular Disease also receives no increase in this request.
Congress will take up the FY 2001 budget in the coming weeks.

RESEARCH NOTES

EXERCISE PROGRAM FOR HOMEBOUND SENIORS: The Centre for Activity
and Ageing in Ontario, Canada, developed the Home Support Exercise
Program to promote a series of simple exercises to homebound older
adults through home health agency workers (home support workers: “HSW’s”).
In order to determine program feasibility and acceptability in both
the HSW’s and in the target population, a formative evaluation was
conducted. Researchers found that with minimal training, HSW’s can
introduce and reinforce simple exercises to their clients. They found,
however, that adherence to the exercise regimen needed further attention.
See Tudor-Locke et al., “Development and Formative Evaluation of the
Center for Activity and Ageing’s Home Support Exercise Program for
Frail Older Adults.” Journal of Aging and Physical Activity, January
2000, 8(1):59-75.

KEEPING THE WEIGHT OFF: Researchers surveyed a representative
sample of adults in the U.S. to determine the prevalence of weight
loss maintenance. Weight loss maintainers were identified as those
who had maintained weight loss of >10% from their maximal weight for
at least 1 year. Weight loss in this sample was quite high, with the
prevalence of reported weight loss at some point in their lives at
54% in the total sample and 62% in those who were ever overweight.
Among those who reported weight loss, one half to two thirds of them
reported that it was intentional. For those individuals who reported
intentional weight loss, the prevalence of maintainers of weight loss
for the previous 1 year was approximately 50% with 25% maintaining
it for 5 years or more. The authors suggest that these results provide
evidence that successful maintenance of weight loss is substantially
better than previously thought, and that overweight individuals should
be encouraged by these findings as they consider losing weight. See
McGuire et al. “The prevalence of weight loss maintenance among American
adults.” International Journal of Obesity, December 1999, 23:1314-1319.

PARENT-CHILD RELATIONSHIP OF PHYSICAL ACTIVITY AND OBESITY:
This cross-sectional survey of normal weight and obese children and
their parents showed that parental inactivity was a strong predictor
of child inactivity, with parent activity scores also predicting child
vigorous activity hours and total physical activity levels. Obesity
results revealed that child obesity was negatively associated with
child physical activity levels and that parental obesity was another
strong predictor of childhood obesity. A novel finding was that the
relationship between parent-child physical inactivity was stronger
than that for vigorous activity. These findings underscore the important
influence that parents’ roles play in childhood obesity and physical
activity patterns with implications suggesting that parents may need
to pay more attention to their own lifestyles to reduce their children’s
inactivity. See Fogelholm et al. “Parent-child relationship of physical
activity patterns and obesity.” International Journal of Obesity,
December 1999, 23(12):1262-1268.

SINGLE VS. MULTIPLE BOUTS OF WALKING: In this study, sedentary
but otherwise healthy participants aged 40-66 were randomly assigned
to one of the following groups: Control (no intervention), Long Walking
(20-40 min session), Intermediate Walkers (10-15 min sessions) and
Short Walkers (5-10 min sessions). Each group completed the same amount
of daily moderate walking with Intermediate and Short Walkers completing
multiple sessions per day. Each of the groups had similar improvements
in their fitness as measured by decreased blood lactate levels and
heart rate during a graded treadmill walking test. However, only Long
Walkers and Intermediate Walkers showed significant decreases in blood
lipid profiles, with the Long Walkers showing the most benefit. The
authors suggest that accumulated bouts of moderate intensity exercise
may not be as effective as traditionally prescribed 20-40 min bouts.
See Woolf-May et al. “The efficacy of accumulated short bouts versus
single daily bouts of brisk walking in improving aerobic fitness and
blood lipid profiles.” Health Education Research, December 1999, 14(6):803-815.

REPORTS, SURVEYS, GUIDELINES, RESOURCES

SHAPE UP AND DROP 10™: Shape Up America! has released a new
program to help overweight or obese adults lose weight in a healthy
manner that produces lasting results. The “Shape Up and Drop 10” program
is a 24-hour weight management system that allows each individual
to set his or her own weight-management goals based on lifestyle,
food and physical activity preferences. The moderately-priced pay-as-you-go
program is accessed through Shape Up America’s website, and was developed
in response to guidelines developed by the Partnership for Healthy
Weight Management. For more information, visit their website at www.shapeup.org,
or e-mail barbara.moore@worldnet.att.net.

UPCOMING CONFERENCES AND WORKSHOPS

HEALTH BEHAVIOR: The American Academy of Health Behavior will
hold its inaugural scientific meeting on September 24 – 27, 2000 in
Santa Fe, New Mexico. Dr. Larry Green will be the keynote speaker,
presenting “Generalizing ‘Best Practices’ from the Idiosyncrasies
of the Research.” Other presentations include “Public Health Strategies
for Obesity Treatment and Prevention” and several presentations on
research methods including “Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System:
National Data, Methodological Issues and Program Applications.” For
more information, visit the Academy’s website at http://www.aahb.org/,
or call 304-293-4699.

“SPARK” SUMMER INSTITUTES: SPARK (Sports, Play and Active
Recreation for Kids) is an elementary (K-6) physical education curriculum
and staff development program validated by the Program Effectiveness
Panel of the US Dept. of Education. The SPARK program evolved from
a research study supported by NIH, and the program currently offers
materials and services to schools, recreation departments, after school
programs, and other organizations on a non-profit basis, through San
Diego State University Foundation. The Foundation is offering two
SPARK Summer Institutes for physical educators, classroom teachers,
recreation specialists and other physical activity providers this
year: July 10 – 14 in San Diego, and August 7 – 11 in West Virginia.
Participants are eligible to enroll for 3 units of college credit.
To request a registration form or more information, call 1-800-SPARK-PE
or e-mail jfrank@sparkpe.org. More information on SPARK is available
at http://www.sparkpe.org/.

WEBSITES OF INTEREST

SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES: The Sustainable Communities Network
addresses a broad range of issues, including: Living Sustainably,
Creating Community, Growing a Sustainable Economy, Protecting Natural
Resources, Promoting Health, Smart Growth, and How to Govern a Community.
The Network’s web site, www.sustainable.org,
was developed to increase the visibility of what has worked for communities,
and to promote a lively exchange of information to help create community
sustainability in both urban and rural areas. The site includes program
case studies, documents for download, descriptions of projects and
tools for working with communities.

PERSONAL HEALTH AND FITNESS: One of the most complete personal
health and fitness websites can be found at www.efit.com.
This for-profit site offers extensive information on a variety of
fitness, nutrition and health topics. Also included are a body mass
index calculator and an Activity/Calorie Calculator, where this author
was pleased to discover that she had expended 251.7 calories raking
the lawn last weekend. Not all the elements of the site work, however
– the member sign-up process seems to be under construction. Worth
checking out anyway, just for fun!

This and past issues of the “University of South Carolina Prevention
Research Center Notes” are available at our website. If you have an
item you’d like to submit, please send it to Regina Fields at rmfields@sc.edu.

For continuing discussions about physical activity and public health,
join the “Physical Activity and Public Health On-Line Network.” Check
out our website, http://prevention.sph.sc.edu,
for instructions on joining.